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Christopher Busby visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risktalks to RT about the saftey of the reactors. Due to the fact the Fukushima units were in meltdown before the tsunami hit.

Prof. Christopher Busby goes on to say "There’s a very, very high level of contamination even as far south as Tokyo. For example, we found one sample in Tokyo that had levels of radioactivity higher than levels inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. a Very serious matter."

RT: Now in Japan the government and the plants operator TEPCO have come under heavy criticism from many quarters for the reliability of the information they have been releasing about this disaster. Do you think that we now know the true extent of this crisis?

Prof. Christopher Busby: No, I know that we don't, because I have actually visited there and I have taken quite sufisticated radiation measuring equipment. And I have been able to satisfy myself that the concentrations of radionuclides on ground even as far as 100 and more kilometers away from the plant are very much higher than they have been saying.

And indeed some measurements that I have been making on airfilters from vehicles from as far away as Tokyo show that the concentrations of caesium 137 for example in these filters is more than 1000 times higher in terms of air concentration than the air concentration that the peak of the weapons fallout in 1963. So we are talking about serious, serious levels of radioactive nuclides. And the problem is that this is effectively being ignored by the authorities concentrating on the external dose rates. So they say, so long as the external dose rate is not more than so many Micro Sieverts Per Hour or whatever it happens to be, everybody is going to be safe.

In some sense they are comparing it with natural background radiation. But actually it can not be compared with natural background radiation. There a very high levels of contamination even as far south as Tokyo. For example, we found one sample in Tokyo that had levels of radioactivity higher than levels inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. It's a very serious matter.

RT: So professor Busby how serious are these new cracks to the structure of the Fukushima plant. Should we be alarmed?

Prof. Christopher Busby: Well the fact that steam coming out, and we know from measurements made in California that the steam contains the Isotope Sulfur 35. This Isotope is associated with neutron radiation of chlorine and so what we got here is a cituation were you got fission taking place, an enormous neutron concentration, neutron flux and seawater. And effectively we are producing very large quantities of radionuclides all the time and they havn't been able to deal with that. I was told by somebody who had heard this from a TEPCO official who was talking to the prime minister of Japan who said that the releases from the plant now in the order of 10 to the power of 13 becquerels every hour. So (laugh) we are talking about something that is absolutley ongoing and it's just being ignored. It's not being adequipley reported by the authorities in Japan or in the International Atomic Energy Agency

RT: M'kay more in time, Christopher Busby scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, many thanks for speaking to us this evening.

When it comes to radiation detection meters you really have a wide field of gadgets to choose from, however radiation detectors are the most common to use.
First of all if you need to know what type of radiation you are looking for. There are Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation detectors. And also there is neutron emission of nuclear radiation. And all these different types of emissions have radiation detectors for a specific type of radiation that you can buy radiation detector for. Some also measure both Alpha and Beta. Others detect Alpha, Beta and Gamma. While others let you measure Beta and Gamma radiation.

What most people have use for though are Dosimeters you can buy a handheld radiation detector pretty cheap that are good addition to a survival kit. There are different kinds that you can use that will detect radiation. There are radiation badges that will tell you when radiation become high. Workers at nuclear power plants use these to inform them of how much radiation they have been exposed to. Now also children in the Fukushima prefecture have each been given a radiation badge so they know if they are exposed to radiation. Some come in the shape of a pen that you can carry in your pocket while other are made more compact so that you can attach them to your keychain. And then you have what is called a personal radiation monitor. These are also called Dosimeters and also normally called Geiger counters. Although not all use the Geiger-Muller Tube for the radiation detection some use a semiconductor instead. These and mostly the older geiger counters seen are pretty big to carry around, so they might not be best suited for a survival situation where you only need to carry the most important things. However if you have land and want to check radiation around the property and drinking water then these are the geiger counters to get because they are very well built units.

These are the once that you normally see people use. They have different units of radiation detection, because when it comes to radiation there are many standards used. some give the measurements in Rads, while other use Sieverts. Some have the maximum radiation value for the measured radioactivity quite low but they will still give you an idea of the amount of radiation in the area. With the units ranging from between background radiation 0.001 mSv/hr all the way up to 10 Sv/h. Normally a dosimeter will measure radiation in micro siverts per hour. If you were to walk into one of the reactor units at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant you probably would get an error reading from your dosimeter because the radiation levels are so high there.

Note that some places outside the exclusion zone in Fukushima that are too radioactive for people to live in have areas where the radiation levels are above 30 Sv/h. So if you are in a area that have high radiation the radiation detectors would also there go off the scale. However Geiger counters or radiation detectors are still favored as general purpose alpha/beta/gamma portable radiation detectors and radiation detection equipment, due to their low cost and robustness. Most come with an LCD Display that show you the radioactivity in the area. Nowdays you will even get alarm sound and the possibility to connect the device to a computer. Either with a Infrared, Bluetooth or USB connection.

So if you look at the radiation detectors for sale that have this, then these radiation detection meters will allow you to make maps of contaminated areas that show where the radiation is high and low. This also will help you to see which areas are becoming more contaminated over time. With several nuclear reactors in the US and around the world located near fault zones that makes it a danger if a big earthquake would hit the area there is always a good choice to have a radiation dosimeter avaliable. I'm sure many in Fukushima would have been grateful to have dosimeters avaliable at the time of the disaster and I am sure you to would be grateful to have a geiger counter handy when you need one.

Due to the TBS JNN Not always showing, we can still see tha pant from a distance with the Moving Futaba CHOJAHARA Live Cam (The Powerlines go out to the Fukushima Plant and by nighttime you can see the towers light up at the Fukushima Plant on the horizon)